If God is loving, merciful and almighty, why aren’t all people saved already?

[Usagi]

Part of the purpose of the Adam and Eve story (even if it is not true in all it’s details) is to explain that.

God didn’t break the world. God didn’t make us prone to temptation. We broke ourselves and the world.

 

[Latin]

Latin:

…

I believe that the correct way to state it is that all have the free choice to reject the sufficient grace, but by not rejecting it, receive an increase of grace called efficacious grace. The universal salvific will is expressed in sufficient grace.

I know the above incorrect Molinistic theory.
Let’s see the view of the most celebrated Catholic theologians on it.
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The Mystery of Predestination by John Salza.

Page 5; The Thomist position on predestination best reflects the teaching of Scripture and the Magisteriom.

Page 83; In the light of the teachings of the Scripture as explained by Church councils and St. Thomas, the Molinist position appears incorrect. End quote.

.
Grace, Predestination, and the Salvific Will of God by Fr. G Most.

Page 369. Molinists labour under an incorrect interpretation of 1 Cor.4:7. Cf. Par. 252.

Cannot be harmonized with even a minimum degree of a universal salvific will.

Actually, Molinistic theories owe more to speculation than revelation. End quote.

.
IT IS EASY TO PROVE THE MOLINISTIC THEORY IS INCORRECT

God decided to create the universe, God designed/ planned every event (call it script) and order every event (contains the script) to the final end for the completion of His universe.

We are God’s builders/ coworkers, by our cooperation with God’s sufficient and efficacious graces we perform every event down to the minutest details according to God’s script.
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307 God thus enables men to be intelligent and free, causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbors.
Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions
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308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator.
God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
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St. Thomas teaches that God effects everything, the willing and the achievement. S. Th.II/II 4, 4 ad 3:

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According to the Scripture, CCC, and St. Thomas, God perfectly governs, controls the human race and they are coworkers of God.

According to the theory of Molinism, God is not able to govern, control the human race, the human race is building the Tower of Babel.
.
God bless

 

[Vico]

…

None of the theories are dogmas of the Church. As Catholic Enclopedia stated:

Owing to the infallible decisions laid down by the Church, every orthodox theory on predestination and reprobation must keep within the limits marked out by the following theses:

a) At least in the order of execution in time ( in ordine executionis ) the meritorious works of the predestined are the partial cause of their eternal happiness
b) hell cannot even in the order of intention ( in ordine intentionis ) have been positively decreed to the damned, even though it is inflicted on them in time as the just punishment of their misdeeds;
c) there is absolutely no predestination to sin as a means to eternal damnation.

Pohle, J. (1911). Predestination. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm

 

[Latin]

a) At least in the order of execution in time ( in ordine executionis ) the meritorious works of the predestined are the partial cause of their eternal happiness

Yes, I always believed heaven is God’s wholly gratuitous, entirely unmerited, gift of efficacious grace and our position, glory and happiness is determined by God according to the outcome of the judgment of our supernatural works.

b) hell cannot even in the order of intention ( in ordine intentionis ) have been positively decreed to the damned, even though it is inflicted on them in time as the just punishment of their misdeeds;

Wooooooow!!! Who designed/ planned their misdeeds and who predestined their misdeeds from all eternity for the reason that God COVERTS THEIR MISDEEDS INTO GREATER GOOD and who is the One who is cooperating with them in their misdeeds by providing for them the powers of operation for their misdeeds??? – Without God we can do NOTHING.

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314 We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history.
Will we fully know the ways by which - even through the dramas of evil and sin - God has guided his creation to that definitive sabbath rest185 for which he created heaven and earth.
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The Divine will is cause of all things that happens, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 1 seqq.).

Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop.
Every operation, therefore, of anything is traced back to Him as its cause. (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III.)
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324 Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence explains;

His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.

He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.

God preserves the universe in being; He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities.

Evil He converts into good (Genesis 1:20; cf. Psalm 90:10); and suffering He uses as an instrument whereby to train men up as a father traineth up his children (Deuteronomy 8:1-6; Psalm 65:2-10;

Nor would God permit evil at all, unless He could draw good out of evil (St. Augustine, Enchir.", xi in P.L. LX, 236; Serm.

Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit., VI, xxxii in P.L.

c) there is absolutely no predestination to sin as a means to eternal damnation.

So, c) proclaims the verdict:

No predestination to sin for eternal damnation.

Predestination to sin is for the reason, our sins are ministers to God’s design and the other reason is, God converts our sins into greater good, which is a process God makes us saints.
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God bless

 

[Gab123]

Are you saying that in Christianity the default position is salvation through Jesus even without baptism? Or is the latter also necessary for salvation and faith in Jesus, with or without good deeds, is insufficient?

Jesus paid for all sins past present and future; repentance and conversion is the key to salvation, wether one knows about Jesus or has never heard of Him. The law is written on everyone’s heart. Obviously if one knows about a Jesus and rejects Him, there is a spiritual blindness which may likely end in damnation. All will see Jesus when they die.

 

[Latin]

No ONE rejects God’s call to eternal life in heaven. – DE FIDE Dogma.

It is God’s DUTY OF CARE to predestine everyone to heaven.

If God does not neglect His DUTY OF CARE everyone saved.
.
God bless

 

[Larry1700]

Wow, so starting immediately, I’m changing my life.

First, find a way to steal enough money to do all the other stuff for the rest of my life.

Then, on to a few “houses of ill repute.”

Then, sweet revenge on everyone who has wronged me.

Etc., etc., etc…

Finally, I’ll see all you suckers in Heaven who “walked the straight and narrow path” all your lives. And I’ll LAAAUUUGH!!!

Nah, never mind. Sorry, Latin. Not buying your explanation. Jesus said otherwise way too many times.

 

[Latin]

The Church is praying for God to save everyone (1058), the will of God is that everyone saved, so God to save everyone CAN NOT be heresy. – With God ALL THINGS are possible.

We all should believe what we are praying for, which is God to save everyone.

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Everyone who is familiar with the Book of Jonah knows, one of the best answer that hell is exist or does not exist for the human race we find it in the Book of Jonah. – The Book of Jonah is the key of the enigma.

The Ninevites where probably the most wicked sinners in the whole world, their wickedness went up to God.

God promised destruction and hell for all Ninevites, NOT FOR THE REASON OF THEIR CONDEMNATION, but for the reason the Ninevites pay attention.
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Because we are not yet perfect, we need as much warnings of hell as much we can get, not because God would throw any of His children into hell, but for the reason His children to pay attention.

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Jonah 3:4; Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, " Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

For the reason to pay attention God promised distraction and hell to all Ninevites.

Despite of all threats and promises of distractions and hell, God provided His Universal Salvation and saved all Ninevites:

Jonah 4:11; And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals?
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God promised destruction and hell to all Ninevites, and God provided Universal Salvation to the Ninevites.

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The same principle applies to the warnings and promises of hell in the New Testament.

God does not change, the way God threatened and promised hell to all Ninevites and at the end saved them all, in the same way, Practically apart from a few people God promises condemnation and hell to the entire human race , but with the same principle God will saves us all, if not, then Christ died on the cross for NOTHING.

So, heaven is a definite for the entire human race for many reasons.
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God bless

 

[Vico]

No ONE rejects God’s call to eternal life in heaven. – DE FIDE Dogma.

It is God’s DUTY OF CARE to predestine everyone to heaven.

If God does not neglect His DUTY OF CARE everyone saved.
.
God bless

All are not saved however, due to some saying no to grace.

 

[Vico]

…
So, c) proclaims the verdict:

No predestination to sin for eternal damnation.

Predestination to sin is for the reason, our sins are ministers to God’s design and the other reason is, God converts our sins into greater good, which is a process God makes us saints.
.
God bless

There is no predestination to eternal damnation, but there are those with eternal damnation. God’s will allows the free will choice of the individual which results in damnation. This particular dogma is the about the final state of chosen gracelessness rather than the use of man’s forseen choices by God.

 

[Latin]

Latin:

No ONE rejects God’s call to eternal life in heaven. – DE FIDE Dogma.

It is God’s DUTY OF CARE to predestine everyone to heaven.

If God does not neglect His DUTY OF CARE everyone saved.
.
God bless

All are not saved however, due to some saying no to grace.

Could you please answer Vico, who are those who are saying no to God’s grace and as the result they are end up in hell?

Please answer the question with your own words, of course if you wish, you could backup your answer with some quotes from Catholic Soteriology as well.

God bless

 

[Vico]

…

God does not neglect anyone, but gives grace sufficient for free will consent. God wills that a person have free will choice, so sometimes mortal sin results and is not repented by the time of death.

Catechism

1861 Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.

 

[catholicray]

Free will is the gift to choose God or not. By all accounts God deserves to be obeyed and loved, especially since his redemption plan for us was laying down his own life for us while we were yet his enemy.

I personally believe that those who go to the lake of fire are not saved because that is their final choice. They desire sin more than God and they ultimately will not change their mind on that.

I watched a video of a priest teaching about levels of spiritual warfare. He said in his encounter with a demon that he asked the following. Did you know what you were dong? Did you know the consequences? Now that you’ve experienced the consequences would you do it again? All to which the demon replied, yes.

Gods judgement is final when our choice is final. That’s my opinion at least.

 

[Latin]

God’s will allows the free will choice of the individual which results in damnation.

That is possible only if God wills that the individual freely chose hell.

As God ALWAYS THE FIRST CAUSE of our willing and choosing, God must cause the individual to freely choose hell, only in this case someone ends up in hell.

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We must make it very clear, our free wills are AIDED GIFT OF GOD, NOT an unaided gift of God and it is NOT INDEPENDENT from God’s will, ALWAYS depends on God’s will.
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The core of the matter is to understand, our free wills are NOT INDEPENDENT from God’s will, our free wills are God’s gift of AIDED FREE WILL. – What God wills for us, that is what we freely choose.

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Probably out of 100 Christian 90 erroneously think, their wills are INDEPENDENT from God’s will, this is NOT the case at all, God is the FIRST CAUSE of our willing and choosing, and we FREELY will and choose in perfect line with God’s will.

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308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator.
God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
.
St. Thomas also teaches that all movements of will and choice must be traced to the divine will: and not to any other cause, because Gad alone is the cause of our willing and choosing. CG, 3.91.
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Aquinas said, “God changes the will without forcing it.
But he can change the will from the fact that He himself operates in the will as He does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9.
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CCC 2022; “The divine initiative in the work of grace PRECEDES, PREPARES , and ELICITS the free response of man. …”

In other words, when God commands, He capacities the hearer to respond.
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Our cooperation with the grace of God is produced (not just enabled) by God’s operation.

Yet our ability to respond is also His gift of efficacious grace.

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As you see above Vico, there is NO such thing as an independent free will from God’s will, our free wills are 100 % depends on God’s will and our FREE WILLS are 100 % caused by God’s will.
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Of course, this Theological Fact, for those who are erroneously conditioned to believe, their free wills are independent from God’s will is not easy to accept.

Some of them even think, if this is the case we are God’s puppets, but without God we can do nothing.

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The Divine will is cause of all things that happens, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 1 seqq.).

Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop.
Every operation, therefore, of anything is traced back to Him as its cause. (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III.)
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God bless

 

[Vico]

Vico:

God’s will allows the free will choice of the individual which results in damnation.

That is possible only if God wills that the individual freely chose hell.
…

Actually God is never responsible for a person’s damnation. Double predestination is a heresy (see Trent below).

Council of Trent (Canon XVII):
“If any one saith, that the grace of Justification is only attained to by those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.”

 

[Needy1]

I personally believe that those who go to the lake of fire are not saved because that is their final choice. They desire sin more than God and they ultimately will not change their mind on that.

If they’re going to lake of fire, why did God let them born? Is it allowed to do nothing if kittens are going to the road, where cars running frequently, while you’re acknowledged that they will be died?

By the way, who gave them the spirit and fresh which will chose sin than God? Will you say that spirit and fresh are no fault but the free will? Then where did they earn that kind of the free will that would chose sins than God?

Did those people ever beg to God like “let me born as human who chose sins than God” before they born, by the free will?

Have you ever begged to God like “I want to be born as human” before you born, by the free will?

 

[catholicray]

I’ve explained this before. First free will is the love of God. He could have created us utterly submissive to His will.

I believe the act to create and judgement were instaneous and simoultaneous. It does not take God time to know and create. He didn’t know you before you were born, he knew you before he decided to create the whole cosmos.

Your fear of God is in alignment of Scripture. But Gods present is always before Him we are inevitable.

But you, by the Love of God are free to choose.

 

[Latin]

There is no predestination to eternal damnation, but there are those with eternal damnation.

CCCS 1996-1998; This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will.
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No ONE rejects God’s Predestination to eternal life in heaven. – DE FIDE Dogma.
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If there is eternal damnation (which I don’t believe) you Vico, below will see the reason for it.

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Predestination of the elect.

Prævisa merita
Asserts that God, by an absolute decree and without regard to any future supernatural merits, predestined from all eternity certain men to the glory of heaven, and then, in consequence of this decree, decided to give them all the graces necessary for its accomplishment.

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Considering that not all men reach their supernatural end in heaven, but that many are eternally lost, there MUST EXIST a twofold predestination:

(a) one to heaven.

(b) one to the pains of hell.

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However, according to present usages to which we shall adhere in the course of the article, it is better to call the latter decree the Divine reprobation so that the term predestination is reserved for the Divine decree of the happiness of the elect.

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The COUNTERPART of the predestination of the good is the decree the Divine reprobation.

Merely implies the absolute will not to grant the bliss of heaven, though not positively predestined to hell, yet they are absolutely predestined not to go to heaven (cf. above, I, B).

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Whatever view one may take regarding the internal probability of negative reprobation, it CANNOT be harmonized with the DOGMATICALLY certain UNIVERSALITY and sincerity of God’s salvific will.
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How can that will to save be called serious and sincere which has DECREED from all eternity the metaphysical impossibility of salvation?
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He who has been reprobated negatively, may exhaust all his efforts to attain salvation: it avail’s him NOTHING.
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For the absolute predestination of the blessed is at the same time the ABSOLUTE will of God NOT TO ELECT a priori the rest of mankind (Suarez), or which comes to the same, to EXCLUDE them from heaven (Gonet), in other words, NOT to save them.

Moreover, in order to realize infallibly his decree, God is compelled to frustrate the eternal welfare of all excluded a priori from heaven, and to TAKE CARE that they die in their sins.

Lessius rightly says that it would be INDIFFERENT to him whether he was numbered among those reprobated positively or negatively; for, in either case, his eternal damnation would be CERTAIN.

Predestination | Catholic Answers Encyclopedia

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As you see above Vico, if there is damnation, we both know the reason for it, it is the decree the Divine reprobation.
.
God bless

 

[Vico]

…
Merely implies the absolute will not to grant the bliss of heaven, though not positively predestined to hell, yet they are absolutely predestined not to go to heaven (cf. above, I, B).
…

“Not positively predestined to hell” is correct, the person chooses. From below: “hell cannot even in the order of intention ( in ordine intentionis ) have been positively decreed to the damned”

Also a person chooses salvation (partial cause): “the meritorious works of the predestined are the partial cause of their eternal happiness”.

Owing to the infallible decisions laid down by the Church, every orthodox theory on predestination and reprobation must keep within the limits marked out by the following theses:

a) At least in the order of execution in time ( in ordine executionis ) the meritorious works of the predestined are the partial cause of their eternal happiness
b) hell cannot even in the order of intention ( in ordine intentionis ) have been positively decreed to the damned, even though it is inflicted on them in time as the just punishment of their misdeeds;
c) there is absolutely no predestination to sin as a means to eternal damnation.

Pohle, J. (1911). Predestination. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm

 

[Vico]

catholicray:

I personally believe that those who go to the lake of fire are not saved because that is their final choice. They desire sin more than God and they ultimately will not change their mind on that.

If they’re going to lake of fire, why did God let them born? Is it allowed to do nothing if kittens are going to the road, where cars running frequently, while you’re acknowledged that they will be died?

By the way, who gave them the spirit and fresh which will chose sin than God? Will you say that spirit and fresh are no fault but the free will? Then where did they earn that kind of the free will that would chose sins than God?

Did those people ever beg to God like “let me born as human who chose sins than God” before they born, by the free will?

Have you ever begged to God like “I want to be born as human” before you born, by the free will?

We could not ask to be created before we were created. God created mankind, each with a rational soul, and this rational ability makes each person a different kind of animal than the others that are not rational. A human is given supernatural grace by God.

Catechism

391 … The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: “The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.” …

392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. 269 This “fall” consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter’s words to our first parents: “You will be like God.” 270 The devil “has sinned from the beginning”; he is “a liar and the father of lies”. 271

396 God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. …

412 … St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature’s being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. …